I have sad news for fans of Tropius (myself
included)...

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Brontosaurus / Apatosaurus kinda existed as synonyms for years, but sometime during the 90s the paleontology community threw up their hands and called an end to it.

I still remember early Land Before Time materials referring to Littlefoot as a "brontosaurus", then magically retconning him into an "apatosaurus" a few films down the line. Still just just a "longneck" to everyone else, though, so no big.

Brontosaurus / Apatosaurus kinda existed as synonyms for years, but sometime during the 90s the paleontology community threw up their hands and called an end to it.

I still remember early Land Before Time materials referring to Littlefoot as a "brontosaurus", then magically retconning him into an "apatosaurus" a few films down the line. Still just just a "longneck" to everyone else, though, so no big.

'90s nothing. It happened at the beginning of the 20th century, as I previously stated.

"Brontosaurus" became the popular name and has persisted in culture since, but the paleontological community stopped using it over a century ago. They didn't suddenly "throw up their hands" in the '90s.

And I'd like to amend what I said: actually, it was just the skeleton in one museum that was an Apatosaurus with the wrong head, which was in 1905 - but it was still in 1903 that it was determined that brontosaurus and Apatosaurus were, in fact, the same dinosaur, and the name Apatosaurus was around first, so it took precedence (as is custom in the scientific community).

To explain: some people came forward with the idea that Triceratops was, in fact, a juvenile Torosaurus, and if true, that means the Torosaurus name would have to be rejected like brontosaurus was (the name "Triceratops" was around first) - but some people caught on to the debate and misinterpreted it, saying Triceratops would be the rejected one.

However, after examining the evidence, most of the scientific community rejected it; most notably, juvenile Torosaurus skeletons have been found - and they're different from Triceratops skeletons.